


Take A Chance

by xxxbookaholic



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: AzaKyu Week 2020, Canon Compliant, Day 5, Fluff, Language of Flowers, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26529064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxxbookaholic/pseuds/xxxbookaholic
Summary: Growing up, Azami had always been taught that confessions were supposed to be big declarations of love and diamond rings. What he found, though, was that confessions weren’t any of that. A confession was a bent safety pin, a vase, and a whole bunch of triangles.
Relationships: Hyoudou Kumon/Izumida Azami
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	Take A Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Flower meanings are at end author notes!

Azami wouldn’t call himself particularly feminine. Sure, makeup and hair styling were certainly a hobby of his, but to him, neither of those things were gender-based. Everybody should take special care of their appearance and health, in his eyes. These were the things he told himself as he watered the flowers sitting on his dorm’s window sill.

Ever since he was young, he’d had a particular interest in growing flowers. There was something about watching them bloom, holding their lives in his own hands, that made him feel more comfortable. He’d picked up the hobby when his mom got sick. She had owned a few plants herself, and when she was hospitalized, she gave Azami the job of caring for them. Most all of them died under his watch, except for one. There had been a single aloe plant that had continued to thrive, despite the dying flowers around it.

When his mom died, he began to buy a few of his own flowers. He’d begun with ones that had simply interested him; pink carnations, white hyacinths, yellow roses. They were a way to express himself; something that he didn’t have to stuff into bathroom cabinets and hide from his father.

After he joined Mankai, he bought a new flower to keep his time in-between plays occupied; a few hydrangeas.

Once Azami finished watering the last of his flowers, he emptied the rest of the watering can into a sink and tucked it under his desk, out of the way. Last time he left it anywhere other than out of sight, Sakyo had bitched about ‘cleanliness’ and ‘aesthetic preferences’. _Seriously, he can be a real pain in the ass, sometimes._

He adjusted the pots so each of the plants would get just the right amount of sunlight, grabbed his bag, and then headed out, feeling much more relaxed than he had when he’d first woken up.

  
❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

Azami didn’t have many friends growing up. It was a given; he was the son of a well-known yakuza boss. Knowing that, most parents didn’t want their kids getting too close to him, and the kids that did try to befriend him were usually just trying to trick him into giving them information about his father. The loneliness never really bothered him. He was always told by his mother that it was better to have friends that liked him than friends who were only using him. Still, even with that advice in mind, he’d never thought he would _actually_ meet somebody who _wanted_ to spend time with him, besides Shifuto.

As he walked the sidewalk to school, listening to Kumon talk about the upcoming First Crush Baseball reruns, he was reminded of his mother’s words all over again. Did Kumon actually like spending time with him, or was it a hassle? Was he just being nice? Azami wouldn’t put it past him to hang out with someone just to be kind.

The thoughts plagued his mind. Mankai was the first home he’d ever truly known since his mother’s passing; what if nobody there thought of him the same way?

“Look!” Kumon’s voice stifled his thoughts. _He tends to do that,_ Azami thought to himself, almost begrudgingly, but he followed his friend’s gaze instead of voicing his concerns.

Azami narrowed his eyes, scanning the whole other side of the street, but in the end, he couldn’t see anything particularly interesting, besides a tiny garden just barely blocked from view by a white picket fence. A few sweet william’s could just barely be seen from between the wood. “What?”

Kumon didn’t sound the least bit upset about having to explain. “The puppies! Look at how cute they are!”

Azami looked once more, and sure enough, there was a woman walking down the sidewalk, holding three separate leashes. The puppies hooked to said leashes were rambunctious, loud, and made him wish he’d never noticed them in the first place.

“Come on, Azami! We have to go ask if we can pet them!” Kumon gripped his wrist, dangerously close to his hand, _and oh god, that’s skipping a lot of mandatory steps. Hand holding wasn’t supposed to happen until marriage!_ Kumon didn’t even look twice before rushing across the street, arm that wasn’t connected to Azami’s flailing around rather than waving.

“Hey!” He called. The woman stopped in her tracks and tilted her head just slightly, as if to ask, _me?_ When Kumon was within a talking distance, he dropped Azami’s hand and stopped in his tracks, smiling sheepishly. “Can I pet your dogs?”

She paused for a second, and then smiled, turning around to completely face them. “Of course!”

Kumon didn’t even hesitate. He immediately leaned down, sticking a hand out. One of the puppies, a chocolate brown one with yellow eyes that made Azami feel like he was being suspected of a crime he didn’t commit, leaned over and sniffed him cautiously, even as the other two puppies immediately stuck their heads under his arm, begging for attention.

Azami had never been a big fan of dogs. His family never owned pets, and he’d never really felt the urge to, especially not after meeting Shifuto’s pet snake, Noodle. He’d seen enough. Despite all of this, standing there, watching Kumon giggle at the puppies as they licked his hands and nipped at his ankles, he briefly considered suggesting a dorm pet to Izumi.

For a few seconds, he wasn’t sure what to do. He just stood there, watching the scene that had somehow managed to make his voice die out. Still, though, even in his dazed state, he was fully aware of the passing of time.

“We’re about to be late, Kumon.”

Kumon sprung up immediately. “Oh, you’re right! Sorry, ma’am, have a nice day!” He bowed to her briefly before spinning on his heel and speed walking back across the street, motioning at Azami for him to follow.

The air was suddenly feeling a little clammier than it had just a few minutes ago.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

“Look, Azami, I finally did it!” Kumon laughed. Whatever he was referring to, it most likely _wasn’t_ the homework that he’d said he was going to do just about ten minutes ago.

Azami paused in applying moisturizer to his face so he could glance over at whatever Kumon was doing.

“It’s a cat in a cradle!” He was holding out his hands, showing the yarn that was wrapped around his fingers in a pattern that definitely didn’t look like a cat in a cradle. Still, though, the smile on Kumon’s face made Azami almost afraid to break his spirits.

“Yeah, I can see that.” _Since when did he lie for the benefit of others?_ “Is it really all that hard to make, though?”

Kumon gave him a dramatic, exasperated look and nodded. He looked like he’d just run the marathon. “The hardest! This was even harder to do than a homerun!”

“You know what would probably be even harder?” Azami asked nonchalantly, turning around to face the mirror once more.

Kumon sat up straighter, “what?”

“Your math homework.”

Kumon paused, and then his face fell. “Yeah, you’re right,” he sighed, hunching over the table in the middle of Azami and Sakyo’s room.

_Don’t give in,_ Azami reminded himself. “If you finish your homework before five, I’ll play baseball with you for an hour.” _Damn it._

Kumon brightened at the sound of that, immediately picking up his backpack and beginning to dig through the contents of the bag. He was seated right next to a pot of blue salvias, Azami’s current favorite flower.

Azami sighed again, twisting the cap of his moisturizer closed and reaching for his eyeshadow pallet. He had no doubt that, given the right motivation, Kumon would pull through. _This will be a long evening,_ he thought tiredly.

The excited fidgeting of Kumon’s hands while he read the math problems, though, almost made everything worth it. _Almost._

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

Azami had known it was an off day from the beginning. Kumon had been completely silent during breakfast, and almost equally as quiet during the walk to school. He hadn’t even come to eat lunch with Azami in between classes, forcing him to eat alone. It wasn’t just worrying him; it was starting to piss him off. If something was wrong, couldn’t Kumon just say it?

Azami’s suspicions were only confirmed when free time started up. He’d been walking along the school garden, trying to pass the time before science started, when he came across Kumon lying next to a patch of christmas roses.

Azami halted right in front of his friend. He was unsure of what to do in that kind of situation; should he leave him to sort everything out himself, or should he talk to him? Eventually, he just thought, _fuck it,_ and sat down next to him.

“Hey,” he began awkwardly, fighting the urge to poke Kumon’s shoulder, “what’s going on with you today?”

Kumon jumped, as if he’d been asleep, and Azami would have almost believed he had been if he hadn’t seen his eyes open just a few seconds ago. “Oh,” was all he said, which wasn’t exactly an answer to the question.

Azami pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. “You’ve been quiet all day. What happened with you?”

Kumon was quiet for a second, as if debating whether or not he should explain. Apparently, the former had won the argument. “I saw Yamaguchi last night, at the park.”

“So? I thought you were on good terms with him now?”

“Sure, we are. That isn’t the problem. It’s just- he asked if I wanted to join the team again. Apparently, baseball tryouts are next week.”

It clicked into place all at once. “Ah,” Azami breathed, dropping his legs to the ground again.

Kumon didn’t say anything more, just sat up and stared at the sky.

A few minutes of silence passed, and then Azami asked, “do you want to join?”

“No,” Kumon said immediately. “I’m already preoccupied with the troupe, and baseball has become more of a hobby for me. Still, though, not going back just makes me feel like a coward.” He took a moment to adjust his sitting position and then said, “maybe I am.”

Azami raised an eyebrow. “I seriously doubt anybody would ever call you a coward.”

“I ran away from every game, even though it was clear that I needed to put in more effort,” he said. “All because of some stupid fever. I didn’t even talk to my teammates about quitting; I just signed the forms and left.”

Azami turned around to fully face Kumon, his fingers digging into the grass under him. “You couldn’t control your anxiety! It wasn’t your fault, Kumon. Nobody blames you. You’re the only one still worried about it.”

Kumon tilted his head, eyebrows furrowed. “I shouldn’t have gotten the anxiety in the first place. Nobody else did.”

Azami thought for a second and then said, “well, everybody else wasn’t you. You’re just as competent as everyone else. Just because you have anxiety doesn’t mean you’re less relevant than anybody else.

“Remember _First Crush Baseball_? You didn’t think you’d make it through that, either, but you did. So, stop doubting everything you do. Making a mistake isn’t the end of the world.”

Neither of them said anything for the rest of the break. When the bell rang, they stood up and made for the door. Azami briefly wondered if he’d said the wrong thing; he wasn’t all that great at comforting other people. Before they parted, though, Kumon stopped and smiled for the first time that day. “Thanks, Azami. That was really helpful.”

Azami just waved and continued down the hallway, grip on his bag tighter than he remembered it being earlier.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

When Azami came back to his dorm, a little bit later than everyone else due to him eating dinner with Shifuto, and saw a christmas rose sitting on his desk, he didn’t question it. He just took out an empty vase and got to work.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

_First Crush Baseball_ began its reruns mid-September. Kumon wouldn’t stop talking about how excited he was about it. Clearly, he couldn’t stop thinking about how excited he was, either, seeing as he had three missing worksheets in language arts.

Azami was busy for most of the week, going back and forth between Mankai and his own home. They were having meetings practically every day with a few other well-known yakuza bosses, and his dad had wanted him to be there for at least half of them. When closing night came, though, he cancelled on his dad last minute, left his phone in his dorm, and headed over to the theater.

The whole summer troupe was doing even better than they had the first time they did _First Crush Baseball_. Still, though, all Azami could focus on was Kumon and how much more confident he seemed to have.

Even his posture on stage was different than when he’d acted for an audience for the first time. Back then, he’d seemed almost desperate, as if he was torn between wanting to stay in the spotlight forever and wanting to hide behind the curtains. Now, he was much more confident and at ease. It was almost hypnotizing.

When the blatantly obvious hit him right in the heart, all he could think was, _shit_.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

Over the next few weeks, Azami learned a lot about himself. He learned how easily just a thought could make him smear his eyeliner across his cheek, he learned how late he could stay awake, listening to Taylor Swift music that he hadn’t heard in years, and he learned just how beautiful the reflection of the stars in someone’s eyes could be.

He was learning new things every day; so many new things, in fact, that he could barely keep up with half of them.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

Azami had to admit; he didn’t have any clue what was going on. He was more of soccer kind of guy, himself. It wasn’t like he knew nothing about baseball; no, what he didn’t understand was the incoherent rambling coming from his left.

Kumon hadn’t shut up since the game started, only going silent when somebody was attempting a homerun. Azami couldn’t understand half of the things he was saying, and Kumon never gave him longer than a few seconds to comprehend his words before he moved onto the next topic.

It had taken a lot of persuasion to get Azami to go to the baseball game in the first place. Originally, he’d been planning on trying out a new eyeshadow palette on Yuki. That was another thing he had learned since _First Crush Baseball;_ saying no to Kumon was hard.

Confusing or not, though, Azami was glad he’d gone. Recently, they hadn’t spent much time together, due to the upcoming Autumn Troupe play, so he was willing to take all of the free time he could get.

Still, sitting outside was pure torture. Despite it already being fall, the sun was still high in the sky, beating down on his back and making him sweat. He was suddenly very grateful that he had decided to skip the makeup, that morning.

Kumon’s enthusiastic clapping and wide smiles made the pain worth it, though. He’d sit in the ninety-degree weather again, for as long as he needed to, if it made his friend laugh like that again.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

It was when Azami was standing in front of his bookshelf, watering a red carnation, that he thought, _I need to do something about this._

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

November rolled around and Azami was practically drowning in work. He was playing co-lead in the upcoming Autumn troupe play, his dad’s birthday was coming up, he was still in the middle of working on his resume, and mid-term exams were just around the corner. Still, though, he didn’t think adding one more chore to his week would be too much work.

Azami organized the flowers he’d picked out in the nicest pattern he could come up with, which was really just disorderly and chaotic, but the colors blended nicely, and to him, that was all that really mattered. It was an assortment of red chrysanthemums, coreopsis’, and yellow tulips. Along with it, he had a note attached to the side of the vase, with a note written in handwriting that he hoped was clean enough to read.

_How did it get to this?_ He wondered to himself briefly as he opened Kumon’s dorm room door (Misumi always left it unlocked) and slipped in soundlessly. He had to tiptoe around the countless triangles that littered the floor, but eventually he found a surface that wasn’t covered in random knickknacks. Azami left the vase on the desk and sped out of the room, intent on getting out of that hell house. How Kumon put up with the mess, Azami was unsure.

Growing up, Azami had always been taught that confessions were supposed to be big declarations of love and diamond rings. What he found, though, was that confessions weren’t any of that. A confession was a bent safety pin, a vase, and a whole bunch of triangles.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

When Azami opened the door to his room, just a few days later, he was met with a vase, a single white violet, and a pale purple note that read, _“I feel the same way.”_

And, “ _how did you get in my room?”_.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I had a lot of fun writing this; actually, I wrote most of it two days early because I got a lil over excited about day 5′s prompts. I tried to use all three of the prompts, as well. If you did enjoy, please leave kudos and/or a comment! It keeps me writing. <3 This fic can also be found on my tumblr account. The flower meanings are as follows:
> 
> Aloe – affection, also grief
> 
> Pink carnations – I’ll never forget you
> 
> White hyacinth – loveliness, prayers for someone
> 
> Yellow rose – decrease of love
> 
> Hydrangea – gratitude for being understood
> 
> Sweet william – grant me one smile (this flower is also called a dianthus barbatus)
> 
> Blue salvia – I think of you
> 
> Christmas rose – relieve my anxiety
> 
> Red carnation – my heart aches for you
> 
> White violet – let’s take a chance
> 
> I got my flower information from these websites:
> 
> https://www.800florals.com/care/meaning.asp
> 
> https://www.almanac.com/content/flower-meanings-language-flowers#flower-meanings
> 
> http://www.allflorists.co.uk/advice_flowerMeanings.asp


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